Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/80

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[2 S. N 4, JAN. 26. '56.

merely an appropriation to Columbus of what was probably in existence long before he was born. In the following passage of Calderon's play of La Dama Duende, we meet with it under another and a more likely name.

" Ahora sabes

Lo del Nuevo de Juanelo,

Que los ingenios mas grandes,

Trabajaron en hacer

Que en un bufete de jaspe

Se tuviese en pie, y Juanelo,

Con solo llegar y darle

Un golpecillo, le tuvo?

Las grandes dificultodea

Hasta saberse lo son ;

Que sabido, todo es facil."

THOS. KEIGHTLET.

Jack Ketch. In Lloyd's MS. Collection of English Pedigrees (Brit. Museum) occurs the origin of this celebrated cognomen :

" The manor of Tyburn was formerly held by Richard Jaquett, where felons were for a long time executed : from whence we have Jack Ketch."

J. Y.

Dean Kirwaris Charity Sermons. The follow- ing particulars may be interesting, mention having been made of Dean Kirwan as a preacher (1 st S. xi. 232.).

The first charity sermon for the Female Or- phan House, Dublin, was preached in St. Anne's Church, in that city, April 22, 1792, by the Rev. Walter Blake Kirwan (subsequently Dean of Killala), when the sum of 7751. was collected. On the 28th of the same month, in the following year, he preached for the same object in St. Peter's Church, Dublin, the collection amounting to 808Z. 7s. 6d. And on March 20, 1796, the largest collection on record for the Female Or- phan House, 1015?. was obtained, after a sermon preached in St. Peter's Church by Mr. Kirwan.

ABHBA.

The Samaritans. Under the title of " Jews in China" (l t S. viii. 626.), MB. T. J. BUCKTON writes, " The only people known as descendants of the ten tribes are the Shomerim, or Samaritans." Whence does MB. BUCKTON learn that the Sa- maritans were descendants of any of the tribes of Israel ? Not from the Bible, certainly, for that book positively affirms the direct contrary, even in the very passage to which MB. BUCKTON refers (namely, 2 Kings xvii. 24 41.)*, without, as ap- pears, having paid the slightest attention to the words professedly quoted. Verse 24. informs us that

" The King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from

taken captive," whereas the former part of the chapter (v. 1. to 23.) alone relates to this subject ; while verse 24. to the end solely concerns the nations or tribes who were transported to Samaria to replace the Israelites ! !
 * The reference is as to when " the ten tribes were

Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in- stead of the children of Israel : and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof."

The remainder of the chapter, too long to be cited here, undeniably proves, that the new in- habitants of the former kingdom of Israel were heathen idolaters merely, utterly unconnected with the Jews. If any confirmation should be desired for the perfectly clear statement of 2 Kings xvii., it will be found in Ezra iv. 1, 2, 3. 9, 10.

Besides, if the Jews and the Samaritans were of the same blood, how does ME. BUCKTON account for the rancorous hostility existing, as recorded in the New Testament, between the two peoples?

I am rather surprised it should have been left to me, when looking over "N. & Q.," 1 st S. viii., more than two years after publication, to remark the above erroneous assertion ; but I cannot dis- cover from the Index of Vol. ix. that it has been noticed previously. ARTHUR HUSSET.

David Hume, I do not remember to have heard, nor do his portraits show, that Hume squinted ; but I find it stated as a fact in the French Esprit des Journeaux for June, 1789, and as the points of a sarcastic query of Rousseau, when he had most absurdly and ungratefully quarrelled with Hume : " With which eye does Mr. Hume look on his friends ? " C.

TASSO'S "ERMINIA."

A correspondent (Xiv.) states (2 nd S. i. 52.), that the readers of the Jerusalem Delivered will have their feelings shocked by hearing, " that the daughter of the Emir of Antioch, to whom Tasso has given the above name," was reluctant to be ransomed from her Christian captors, not from any attachment to Christianity, " but from extreme fondness for pork"

The latter assertion rests, it is said by Xiv., upon the authority of Ordericus Vitalis.

Will Xiv. have the goodness to quote the pas- sage to which he refers ; and, at the same time, mention the edition, the year and the place printed, of the copy from which he quotes ? There are few writers of the Middle Ages of whom there have been more various editions printed, than Ordericus Vitalis ; and I should like to have the opportunity of looking at the original passage to which Xiv. refers.

As to " the daughter of the Emir of Antioch," I confess to a personal interest in that lady, having made her a leading character in a book that appears in the last advertisement on the last page of the same Number of " N. & Q." on which is published the Note of Xiv. So leading a cha- racter is " the daughter of the Emir of Antioch" in